Friday, 9 February 2007

Our endless sense of entitlement will hang us all Pt1

I was on the tube the other day, looking round the adverts, they were the usual mix of insurance, vitamins, phone cards and holiday ads. One advert jumped out it was for hotel website alongside the usual claims and discounts next to the smiling blonde call centre women was a picture of a Maldives island hotel. You know the usual cluster of thatched cabins on stilts sticking out into a clear blue Indian ocean, two jet skiers scudding along in the background. So much, so what’s new it’s staple of the holiday brochure always portrayed as the acme of honeymoon location. A once in a life time place to swan around in wearing linen and chatting to all the other newly wed couples fresh from Baltimore, Stuttgart ,Lyon and Penge. What could be better. Well what did attract me in this ocean of blandness was a little addition to one of the huts, it was a cantilevered swimming pool. Sticking out over the bluest Photoshopped water was another fresh water pool, hot tub spa whatever. These are swimming pools for people who I suppose would send their cream cakes back for light dusting of chocolate on the cherry.Presumably being surrounded by crystal clear water some people just aren’t satisfied, they want fresh water. In fact I’m sure there are people who spend whole weeks on these islands without ever dipping their toes in the sea and spend all day flubbed out in these hot tubs necking a stream of drinks in preparation for their air freighted prawns and steak. In fact they probably proudly joke about in over priced surrey pubs “ yes Colin never left that pool, he said the sea was full of turtle piss didn’t you Col…..“I don’t need really need to outline that heated and treated, fresh water pools half a mile out into the Indian ocean may just be the straw that breaks the camels back ecologically speaking. I also don’t need to remind you that we are riding on the back of this camel and it’s the only one we’ve got. It’s this sense that we can meet every need whatever the consequences, that we have everything and so become jaded with everything. That there are people who fly half way across the world to sit in idyllic spot above a paradise ocean but within half an hour are bored and need bubbles blown up their fundaments. It’s because “your worth it“. We all do it on a lesser scale, you’ve had 4 meetings today so it’s a takeaway and DVD, you’ve had the kitchen for 8 years so you get a new one with self closing doors and “cooler” draws . It’s selling ford escorts because they can connect to your phone, it’s the paying £2 a week for someone to clean your wheelie bin. We can’t meet these needs because by their nature they are unmeetable. There will always be the hotel hot tub with better pulsating bubbles, disco lights, aroma therapy vapours, gold taps, gold and diamond taps……